Globalization and the Visualization of Wales and Welsh America

Abstract

Globalization has led to semiotic forms in general taking on new values. We report on the trends and values of photographic images in a sample (1948–2001) of a North American newspaper (Y Drych), established in 1851 to serve the Welsh migrant community there. For such diasporic groups, visual imagery of this kind potentially links them with their ‘roots of origin’, provides opportunities for representing their conditions and contemporary trajectories, as well as possibly functioning as a resource for constructing social identities. We consider the images partly in distributional terms – whether they are of scenes or of people in North America or in Wales – and partly through qualitative analysis. We report shifts in the photographic content during our sample period, from primarily images reflecting status and hierarchy in North America, towards the inclusion of more photographs of place (buildings and landscapes) and people in Wales, emphasizing tradition, history and cultural continuity. We consider these findings, first, in relation to selectivity of resources for constructing social identities, and second, in relation to the contestation in Wales between folk and vernacular conceptions of Welshness.